"With more than 500,000 Syrian killed in a civil war that rages on, the European Union in turmoil after the Brexit vote, and terrorism markedly on the rise in Europe, diplomats around the world have chosen to focus their attention this week on creating a Palestinian state. Representatives from 70 countries are expected in Paris on Sunday for a planned Mideast peace conference doomed before it starts.

The fact that the meeting is taking place five days before a new administration takes over in Washington - one that appears to be more openly supportive of Israel - and two days before the U.N. Security Council is said to be voting on several anti-Israel resolutions, suggests that the international community is set on increasing the pressure on Israel...

'Everyone knows, a priori,' that the conflict 'can only be resolved by the parties themselves, no matter how many nations travel to Paris for the conference you are hosting,' AJC CEO David Harris wrote in an open letter to French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault this week. Harris pointed out that the conference is going forward even though Israel opposes the idea, Washington is undergoing a changing of the guard, and the French are less-than-honest brokers, given their votes against Israel in the Security Council and at a World Health Organization General Assembly in May when it 'voted in favor of a measure that bizarrely singled out Israel by name as the only country in the world accused of undermining 'mental, physical and environmental health.'

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered last spring to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in Paris or elsewhere, for face-to-face talks on all issues, without pre-conditions. It was rejected, as usual..."

"About a month and a half after the lethal wave of fires that blazed across Israel has passed, a report conducted by the investigations department of the Israeli national Fire Services Authority and released on Friday officially determines: out of the 80 fires that were investigated by the authority, 71 were set on purpose by arsonists.

Ruling out other possible causes for the fires such as accidents or negligence, the report claims that the majority of the fires were set by arsonists who were motivated by criminal, ideological motives. Only a small number of the fires are still classified by the authority as 'suspected arson.'

The report provides details regarding the circumstances of the largest fires that were set in November 2016, citing the means with which the arsonists committed their crimes."

"Sens. Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham were fierce rivals last year for the presidential nomination, but said Thursday they're now joining forces to achieve one common goal - defunding the United Nations unless it rescinds its Security Council's vote against allowing Israeli West Bank settlements.

'What brings us together today is an issue that I think really unites Republicans but also unites Americans, and that's standing with Israel,' Cruz told Fox News' 'Fox and Friends' program. 'If you look in the last month what [President] Barack Obama has done, I think it's been nothing short of shameful. It has been striking out against Israel, really showing his true beliefs.'

Cruz said he and Graham will file their legislation to defund the U.N. on Thursday, and hope to 'end it all unless and until they reverse this anti-Israel resolution.'

Also appearing on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' program, Graham noted that 22 percent of the money for the United Nations comes from the American taxpayers, and he does not think 'It's a good investment for an American taxpayer to give money to an organization that condemns the only democracy in the Mideast, takes the settlement issue and says that's the most important and only issue in term of impediments to peace.'

The United States abstained from the vote, he pointed out, which amounted to Secretary of State John Kerry and Obama 'taking a slap at Israel,' he said.

'We're going to push back,' Graham told the program. 'I think most Americans believe that the United Nations has become more anti-Semitic and we're going to stop the money until we get this fixed. I appreciate Ted's leadership on this.'..."

"The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) announced that it would begin its official investigation into the ties between UNRWA and terrorist organizations and incitement in official Palestinian Authority textbooks after President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20...

The investigation was requested by Senator James Risch (R-Idaho), the Chairman of the Senate Near East Subcommittee, following briefings on UNRWA's indiscretions to Congress by the Center for Near East Policy Research over the past few years...

"This is a matter with which I am deeply concerned and I have asked GAO to investigate," Risch told The Daily Signal news site last July. 'I anticipate that the investigation will take some time, however, so I will reserve my comments until after I receive and am able to assess GAO's findings on the matter.'

The US provides approximately $400 million in finding to UNRWA each year, which amounts to one third of UNRWA's annual budget. The organization serves the Arab refugees of the 1948 War of Independence and their descendants, proving education, health care, employment, and other services. All other refugees in the world fall under the jurisdiction of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Repeated investigations by the Center for Near East Policy Research have shown that the textbooks used in UNRWA schools preach hatred of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. Investigations have also found that members of the Hamas terrorist organization are employed by UNRWA in various capacities, including as teachers..."

President Obama has gone rogue and only one man can protect American democracy in the next few days: the President-elect.

On January 15, 2017, with only five days left after 2,917 days in office, President Barack Obama is planning once again to feed Israel to the international wolves. The move is intended to tie the hands of President Donald Trump and is a direct repudiation of the will of the American electorate who rejected Obama's calamitous foreign policy and a repeat performance by his secretary of state.

On Sunday, France is scheduled to hold an international conference to unleash an international mob on Israel. The meeting is taking place with Obama's direct connivance. Seventy-states have been lined up to impose their preferences on the Middle East's only democracy. Israelis are still dying in Israeli streets after seventy years of unending Arab terror – and the folks sitting in Paris munching on croissants know best how to protect Israeli national security.

The bare-faced power-grab by France and its Arab allies – with the blessing of President Obama – raises unavoidable questions: Who will attend? If they attend, how senior a representative will be sent by the main players on the Security Council: the U.S., Russia, and the United Kingdom? Will attendees sign on to an outcome document imperiling Israel that is already circulating? Will the Middle East Quartet – composed of the U.S., the EU, Russia and the UN – approve of the outcome document? Will a UN Security Council subsequently approve of the outcome document before January 20, 2017?

The French meeting follows on President Obama helping to ram through a UN Security Council resolution on December 23, 2016 that was clearly intended to unleash a legal and economic pogrom against the Jewish state. It didn't take long for Palestinian terrorists to get the message: sidelining a negotiated solution between the parties by strong-arming an Israeli villain at the UN was a greenlight for the enforcers in Gaza City and Ramallah.

President Obama's collusion on round-two jettisons decades of bipartisan policy prioritizing a negotiated path to Arab-Israeli peace, and flies in the face of overwhelming bipartisan opposition in Congress reconfirmed by the House just last week. Since the point of this flurry of international activity by UN-firsters is to scuttle and deny President Trump's foreign policy remit, would-be participants in the French mugging of the Jewish state need to know – now – what they should expect five days later on January 20, 2017.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May has already made calls to the incoming team and expects to be high-up on the list of early visitors welcomed to the White House in the spring. EU countries will similarly come asking for help easing post-Brexit fallout, tackling refugee problems, and buttressing security needs. The Middle East Quartet is desperate to continue its role supervising the Arab-Israeli conflict and to avoid a return to sole American custody. The UN is an economic ward of the United States – to the tune of upwards of 10 billion a year – currently parked in the middle of a place many diplomats prefer to home.

So here are some suggestions that may be communicated to those interested in a productive relationship with the man in office five days later and his colleagues now in charge of the purse strings on Capitol Hill – if the French refuse at their peril to postpone it altogether:

contract the diplomatic flu and don't attend the French ambush; that goes for the new UN
Secretary-General António Guterres

send a low-level bureaucrat to take notes, leaving Secretary Kerry (who is expected to attend) to schmooze about tolerance with the human rights enthusiasts in the Arab League

refuse to agree on an outcome document, despite Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas sitting on the sidelines threatening more terror unless...

prevent any move by the Quartet to agree to an outcome document

refuse any effort to move an outcome document to the UN and have it adopted by the Security Council in any shape or form – a resolution, a presidential statement or a press statement.

As for the UN, there is only one subject that UN-firsters understand and it isn't a Congressional memo begging the institution to treat Israel better the next time. A promise to insist on an immediate halt of the transfer of funds to the UN pending a thorough accounting of expenditures and a strategic review of the US-UN relationship, would be a good start.

The rogue in the White House is poised to derail any prospect of Arab-Israeli peace in the foreseeable future, further endanger Israel's security and the country's ability to safeguard Jewish identity. If his co-conspirators believe it will be cost-free, expect the onslaught to proceed as planned.